GREENFIELD — Residents of Franklin and Hampshire counties voiced longstanding frustrations with the state’s payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) program during a listening session on Thursday night.

The Commission on PILOT for State-Owned Land organized the session, held at the John W. Olver Transit Center, to help guide its work as it takes a deeper look at the program and charts potential changes. Among its local members are Franklin Regional Council of Governments Executive Director Linda Dunlavy and Orange resident Jane Peirce, who serves on the FRCOG Council oversight board.

“This is a long time coming,” state Rep. Susannah Whipps, I-Athol, said as the approximately 70 attendees took their seats. “This is such an important step, and to have you here and have your voices heard tonight is so very important.”

“It’s important that we capture the real urgency of this moment for our communities,” added state Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, who serves on the commission.

The PILOT program offers cities and towns payments for state-owned land that falls into certain categories. Massachusetts Executive Office for Administration and Finance Deputy Chief of Staff Caroline Elmendorf, who serves on the commission, explained that eligibility for the PILOT program typically depends on whether the land was taxable when the state acquired it, the use of the land and the state agency or program associated with it. Certain state parks and forests, wildlife and recreation spots, watershed protection land, military campgrounds, land for higher education institutions, and correctional and public health facilities are eligible for the program.

If the bounds of eligibility sound confusing, Elmendorf said that is no secret to members of the commission.

“There’s a lot of legacy in the way the program runs that maybe doesn’t have a logical reason today, so we want to acknowledge that,” Elmendorf said. “We are aware that the program is hard to explain.”

Elmendorf then broke down the formula for PILOT payments for eligible state-owned land in towns and cities, which entails dividing the total market value of the municipality’s eligible land by the total market value of the statewide eligible land and multiplying that result by the state’s annual appropriation for the program. She added that the formula ignores inflation rates, the percentage of the municipality’s land that the state owns and local tax rates.

Several attendees argued that the current formula disadvantages western Massachusetts towns, where market values for land are largely lower than towns in the eastern part of the state and where residents maintain more state-owned land.

According to a chart Elmendorf showed, Franklin County held the third-largest expanse of eligible PILOT land out of the state’s 14 counties in fiscal year 2026 with 64,502 acres. With 33,619 acres of PILOT-eligible land, the fourth-largest amount in the state, Hampshire County earned an average of $110 of PILOT money per acre in FY26.

Yet, Franklin County’s average PILOT payment per acre from the state came to $59, the second-lowest rate. Suffolk County held the highest average PILOT payment per acre at $4,885, with 178 acres of eligible PILOT land.

“Eastern Massachusetts has been winning because their land values are much higher and yet the natural working land you are stewarding is critical to the [state’s] climate goals,” Comerford told attendees.

She and Elmendorf acknowledged residents’ concerns and emphasized that the formula follows a narrow definition for land “value” that only considers the land’s market value assessments, not the value of the towns conserving the land to protect the environment or maintain its recreational purposes, for example.

Comerford said the commission is digging into questions like, “How do we value land?” and “What is valuable about land?”

“Which is why four out of the five listening sessions are in western Massachusetts, because you are stewarding natural and working land, which the governor and lieutenant governor value, and we’re trying to look at that value proposition in the land,” Comerford continued. “This doesn’t have to be a static reality.”

Elmendorf added that limited information exists from the PILOT program’s start, leaving the impetus for the program, besides providing compensation to municipalities to offset lost property taxes, unclear.

“One of our goals with the commission is to realign on what we think the purpose of the commission should be,” Elmendorf continued. “We’d like to take a forward look with this.”

In small groups of about 10 attendees, concerned residents, town officials and local organization members from nearby rural communities shared their issues with the impact of the PILOT program on their towns and changes they hope to see the commission pursue.

Amherst residents said the town’s share of PILOT money does not reflect the effects of the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s expansive campus and student population on the town. Others described the financial pains of state-owned land taking up the majority of their rural towns without the state support to maintain municipal agencies like the fire department, the limited opportunities to earn revenue off of state-owned land and the stressors of stewarding state-owned land.

“This is a good step,” Shutesbury Finance Committee member Susie Mosher said after the session. For Mosher, the direction for the Commission on PILOT for State-Owned Land’s path forward must “come from the people.”

In her small group, Comerford said she heard calls for a more equitable PILOT program that encompasses a broader interpretation of land value. Her group members stressed the value of ecosystem services, including the ways in which a town’s undeveloped land benefits food systems, wildlife habitats and carbon sequestration.

“This is helping us paint a clearer picture,” Elmendorf explained as attendees chatted.

“We know there’s work to be done on these formulas, and we’re going for it,” Comerford said.

The commission will hold three more listening sessions in western Massachusetts: